Notes From a Tool User - An Agile Blog

Daily Scrum is just a chance for the ScrumMaster to show up and micromanage.

Daily Scrum is for reporting status, but I could do that in an email.

Have you heard these complaints before? I have. But I got a new version of it last week that disappointed me to the point that I have to respond:

I’m all for automating things that need automation, but let’s consider what this tool implies – that Daily Scrum is wasteful. The tool’s authors want to save team members the time that is spent talking to each other, and they imply that will be an “improvement”.

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours. This is done by inspecting the work since the last Daily Scrum and forecasting the work that could be done before the next one. The Daily Scrum is held at the same time and place each day to reduce complexity. During the meeting, the Development Team members explain:

· What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?

· What will I do today to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?

· Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal?

None of these needs can be satisfied by an automated tool.

This activity can’t be properly completed over email or twitter – it needs to be held face to face because the purpose is only achieved effectively when your team is involved in a dialogue. (If your team is distributed, then real video conference makes an adequate and necessary alternative.)

If a team member complains that Daily Scrum is a waste of time (or a status meeting, or an opportunity for micro-management) remind the team of the meeting’s purpose, and then ask the whole team how they would like to re-organize the activity to achieve that. Perhaps the questions being asked don’t provide the focus? Then change the questions. Perhaps they feel that the standup has turned into a status reporting meeting? Then ask them how to make it about them instead.

As usual in Scrum, asking the team to find a way of solving the problem is far more valuable than just sweeping the problem under the rug – or, in this case, by switching to a tool.

June 12-13, 2018

in Edmonton

June 14-15, 2018

in Toronto

June 21-22, 2018

Comments

Completely agree Mark. The idea of using a tools to replace face to face conversation is a really bad idea. From the Toyota Production System to Scrum and Extreme Programming, the daily standup meeting was not about status, it was about people synchronizing, planing collaboration, and self managing.

tom rose

But in practice it ends up being a way to micro-manage programmers and other technically capable staff.

John Voris

I also agree. The next suggestion will be to have members prepare all their remarks, and to talk FASTER. The real improvement would be for members to talk TIGHTER, to be more on-subject to today’s task and in-sync with each other’s work.

John – isn’t it funny being effective requires being thoughtful, not faster. Speed is not the point in Scrum 🙂

Cheers
Mark

tom rose

Actually the real improvement would be to dispense with this ridiculous method of organising IT work when it gets in the way rather than helping. It has become a religion rather than one tool amongst many, to be used when it is appropriate.

Myrto Kamenopoulou

Daily scrum is collaborative. It gives team a rhythm, it helps team focus. It is the most valuable source of information, it increases transparency and the return on time invested (15′ max) is incomparable. Plus with an automated tool, you can never guarantee that people will actually take the time and go through the e-mails and read them. On the contrary, they most probably won’t.

Myrto – you have me laughing as I think about the number of unread emails in my life. Thanks.

ashok singh

Daily stand up is not a status meeting and it should not be. It is a replanning meeting to meet the Sprint goal. Face to face communication is awesome, Scrum guide recommends that. However Scrum guide needs to redefine face to face communication in the digital world where technology and communication tool makes easy to have interaction across geography. Taking face to face to communication literally would defy the technological revolution, shift towards global village, a process which is irreversible. Recently I read that govt redefined the meaning of high speed internet….really? We do not want Scrum guide to miss the revolution and become outdated.

* There are more face to face teams not less as more organizations recognize the value.
* The science of communication and the evidence makes it clear face-to-face communication transmits more information and emotion than even the best Cisco tele-presence tool.
* The science also tells us that face to face teams become more productive more quickly.

You can become highly productive in a distributed environment, but in most cases it shouldn’t be your first choice.

So Scrum works in both co-located and distributed environments. For the foreseeable future co-located trumps distributed.

However did we manage to create working software in the days before Agile?

Reason

The premise of this argument is flawed. All three of the initial complaints you referenced at the beginning of your argument are perfectly valid.

Agile is a methodology that is designed to give non-technical managers something to do while they’re interfering with more useful employees.

You have no purpose.

Jofrey Smith

Scrum/agile is very trendy, but what problem does scrum actually address, and how well does it address that problem?

Jofrey Smith

As an example of how it can be used to waste company money when used in the wrong hands: I once found myself having to attend three sprints a day for the same work (really!) because my manager wanted us to go over our progress a) internally first b) a second standup with our main customer c) lastly with the customer’s new consultant CTO . Each time “so Roger, what have you been doing?” “seriously we literally just had this conversation?!”

Jofrey – this isn’t Scrum. Scrum is a tool to help teams collaborate. Daily Scrum isn’t about management, progress reporting or the customer. Daily Scrum is a tool for helping the team prepare for the days work. Your management and customer shouldn’t be interfering with the team on a daily level.

Scrum is a tool for finding problems. The question is what is your team doing to raise and resolve the issue.

If you buy me a decent beer I will get on the phone with your CTO and explain why daily micro-management is not the purpose of Scrum.

Brandon Says

Daily scrum is pointless unless you have a larger team that’s made up of smaller teams that might have different deadlines, integration points, etc.

Other than that, no one needs a day-by-day breakdown of what people are working on. It isn’t important for today what you did yesterday unless you didn’t finish it. It is ridiculous to assume that people can’t talk to each other when impediments arise rather than air them at a meeting unless the entire audience is on point to solve it.

On a team of 8 people…you can stick them in a room for 15 minutes. Let’s say we do this 5 days a week for an entire year. That’s about 520 work hours. And, let’s say the average pay for that team is like $50 dollars to make the math easy. That’s a whole $26K that’s spent in a room for no real reason other than to get a 15 minute break from focusing on what really matters.

Time is money. Focus on the things that matter.

Brandon Says

“Collaboration” is a very bloated word and at times…open to interpretation. No one needs group therapy to collaborate.

STLstudent

I know that this is an old article. Just would like to add that my experience is that corporations do NOT really allow their teams to do agile. Senior IT management does not understand agile nor does management really care to understand agile.